Self-driving automobiles have become ubiquitous in the past few years, as they have been developed by multiple companies, advertised, and promoted extensively in the news media. Prominent companies such as Google have tested self-driving independent vehicles extensively on public roads. Other companies such as Tesla have provided autopilot-type features in certain vehicles that are available for purchase by the public. Additional companies such as Apple have announced plans to develop self-driving cars. According to some estimates, millions of self-driving cars will be on the road by 2020.
In general, self-driving cars are divided into two different types. Those are autonomous cars that can drive wholly without assistance and semi-autonomous cars that need some human assistance. Fully autonomous cars can be further divided into user-operated vehicles and driverless vehicles.
Most self-driving cars are specialty vehicles that have many integrated sensors and controllers for monitoring various aspects of the road and driving conditions surrounding the vehicle. Such vehicles are generally very expensive or not available for public purchase at present.
Moreover, even where such vehicles are available for purchase, they are often specialized vehicles that may not have features desirable to different types of users. For example, a family wishing to take two vehicles on a long trip may not wish to take the small type of vehicle that Google is developing and may, for that reason, forego the purchase of a self-driving vehicle because the family wishes to have two minivans available while on the trip. However, the inventors are not aware of any minivans that are currently available as self-driving cars. For this reason, a family taking two minivans on vacation may be forced to employ two drivers, one for each minivan. In the alternative, the family may cram itself into a single minivan so that drivers may share driving responsibility. Or, the family may retrofit one minivan with towing equipment and rent or purchase a trailer to tow the second minivan. Or, the family may elect to skip the vacation rather than employing one of the listed options. In some instances, the family may wish to take the vacation with two vehicles, neither of which is capable of towing the other, making it impossible to share driving responsibilities.
Similarly, an owner of a recreational vehicle (RV) may want to bring a second vehicle on a trip so that the RV may remain parked at the destination and the second, smaller vehicle may be used to travel to restaurants, stores, museums, and other destinations that the RV owner wishes to visit that do not accommodate RV parking. Some RVs may be equipped for towing a second vehicle, but some may not. Additionally, some RV owners are not capable of driving an RV towing another vehicle or do not feel safe doing so.
Additionally, current methods of towing a vehicle with another vehicle are very involved processes. The towing apparatus and process involves physical links, such as chains, rigid rods, braking systems between the towing and the towed vehicle and modifications to one or both vehicles. Other methods involve use of a trailer which can carry the towed vehicle in full or in part. In direct towing methods, modifications are often required for the towed and the towing vehicle. The additional load of a towed vehicle adds wear and tear to both the towed and the towing vehicle. The cost of modifications is not insignificant. And the process of engaging and disengaging the tow mechanism is cumbersome and time consuming. This is regularly seen when a vehicle such as a recreational vehicle (RV) must to tow another vehicle. Moreover, in the above case there are a limited number of types of vehicles that can be easily retrofitted for the purpose of towing.
For these reasons, it would be desirable to have a way to “tow” a follow vehicle behind a lead vehicle without a physical attachment between the lead and follow vehicles and without a driver in the follow vehicle. It would also be desirable to have a way to “tow” a follow vehicle under its own power, either because the lead vehicle does not have sufficient power to pull the follow vehicle or because travel may be safer or faster if the lead and follow vehicles are not mechanically linked.
In many instances, drivers engaged in long, cross-country drives may be overtired or overstressed from long distance driving and wish to have an opportunity to rest, rather than driving for the remainder of a journey. Such drivers could rest if they were not required to constantly monitor the road and adjust the controls of their vehicles. But, currently, no systems or methods allow for such rest.
Similarly, in many urban areas, drivers are confronted with tedious commutes in standstill or stop-and-go traffic. Such commutes cause stress and accidents when drivers lose attention or attempt risky maneuvers. Additionally, the delayed response when drivers must accelerate or decelerate in busy traffic propagates to a large degree and causes traffic jams and slow traffic.
For these reasons, it would be desirable to have systems and methods that allow for drivers to place their vehicles into a “train” or “convoy” of vehicles that is not connected physically, but wirelessly. It would be desirable to allow all of the vehicles behind a lead vehicle to follow the lead vehicle while allowing the drivers of the following vehicles to rest and/or lower their stress levels. It would also be desirable to have a system that would reduce the delayed responses that propagate to multiple cars in busy traffic, by providing a system that communicates acceleration and deceleration information such that multiple vehicles can simultaneously or nearly-simultaneously accelerate or decelerate.
It would also be desirable to have an autonomous vehicle piloting and control system that can be used in a standard vehicle with human-operable controls by placing the piloting and control system in the vehicle when needed and, if desired, removing it or moving it to another vehicle when not needed. It would be desirable to fashion such a system in a manner that it can communicate wirelessly with a human-operated vehicle and follow a human-operated vehicle so that extensive and expensive sensor systems and artificial intelligence are not required. Instead, it is desirable to provide systems and methods that use more limited sensor and control systems to reduce the cost of converting a vehicle into a self-driving vehicle that follows another vehicle.
For the avoidance of doubt, the above-described contextual background shall not be considered limiting on any of the below-described embodiments, as described in more detail below.